No sentence for perpetrator of Forum incident

Text:

Albert Sikkema

The Arnhem court has dismissed the perpetrator of the Forum incident. On Wednesday, the court passed judgement and decided that the international student was of unsound mind at the time he attacked a fellow student and a WUR employee on 18 January.

The court follows the judgement of the psychiatrist who determined that the perpetrator had a psychosis at the time of his outbreak of violence in Forum. He stabbed a fellow student with a comb and hit Resource editor Roelof Kleis on the head. The other student suffered both physical and psychological damage. The court decided that the victim will receive a compensation of over 3000 euros from the perpetrator.

The court will not sentence the perpetrator. Following the psychiatrist’s opinion, the court also considers the chances of a repeat violent offense in the future to be low. The psychiatric symptoms are deemed to be a one-off occurrence, which is why the court does not impose any additional measures for probation.

During the hearing, the perpetrator – who has gone back to his motherland of Colombia since the incident – indicated that he would like to resume his study in Wageningen in due time. Wageningen University is willing to re-register him, says Ingrid Hijman, head of the Student Service Centre. However, the university does not want him to come back to Wageningen but to finish his degree in Colombia; he only needs to do an internship and a graduate course.